Today, thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands or a million?) of Filipino gamers, freelancers, and students found themselves locked out of Discord. No warning, just a sudden blackout. The Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) had pulled the plug. On September 22, the CICC announced a 24-hour ultimatum to Discord and Reddit to provide local reps. Why? They want to talk to Discord and Reddit about curbing and stamping out NVE (nihilistic violent extremism) on these online platforms. If they didn’t, they’d remove Reddit and Discord local access.
For those who don’t use it, Discord is an American chat app where you can talk by voice, video, or text, either privately or in groups called servers. Reddit is a huge American forum and social news site where people share and discuss just about anything. They informed the internet service providers to cut off access to Discord.
After a full day yesterday, they followed through on their threat, and earlier today, people couldn’t access Discord anymore.
The backlash was immediate. Former DICT Undersecretary Jeffrey Ian Dy called out the move, saying it punished thousands of Filipino virtual assistants and freelancers who rely on Discord for work, instead of catching actual cybercriminals. Social media and forums exploded with angry and confused posts.
Several hours later, the ban was lifted after some intense back-and-forth between Discord and the government. It probably helped that people were calling the CICC uncharacteristically misinformed about what Discord is and what it does for people.
Despite strict enforcement, the CICC maintained that the restriction was temporary. CICC Director Wayawaya “Aya” Macalma assured the public that the geoblock would be lifted once Discord provided a concrete response addressing the government’s urgent requirements for child safety and accountability.
With thousands suddenly cut off, Discord had to act fast. They promised to open a local office in two weeks and link their safety systems with Philippine rules. Once the CICC got it in writing, it lifted the ban, and everyone was back online.
This quick but dramatic ban is a wake-up call. It shows how hard it is to keep young people safe online without hurting freelancers and students who need these tools. The fight between global tech and local rules is just getting started.
But why didn’t Reddit get banned? Well, they acted quickly and secured a deadline extension.
But this incident, along with previous ones, shows that the government’s overreach is alarming. Its actions are becoming tantamount to online censorship and could be a prelude to removing free access to information.
We’ll continue to update this story as new developments come.
For more tech news and updates, stay tuned to TGXP³.